Christmas Letter Part 3

My dad finished the Christmas letter and included a bit about each of us kids.

This year was a poor year for fishing, for me, that is.  I didn't go 
as often as I should have.  But, I did some some trout fishing, which 
I hadn't done before.  I discovered two nice lakes on the San Carlos 
Apache Reservation,  Dry Lake and Point of Pines lake.  The elevation 
of both is about 7200'.  The country is beautiful and the fishing 
excellent.  Come over and go fishing with me.

Our recreational activities this year were held to a minimum.  I spent 
a considerable amount of time in Phoenix, either training for, or 
waiting for campus and political demonstrations to occur.  When we 
weren't out of town, we had to stay home by the telephone waiting to 
be called.  This next year, I hope we will have more time of our own.  
I have been doing some researching on ghost towns and early mining 
camps in this area.  I plan to do some exploring around them.  Maybe I 
will come up with something interesting.

I am going to speak for Kathleen and the kids.  We would love to see 
you.  If you should get anywhere near here, stop by and see us.  Our 
number is in the book, just give us a call.  We can go fishing, 
exploring or whatever.

Carolyn thinks school is great this year, and I suspect it has 
something to do with the fact that she has all men teachers.  She puts 
forth a lot of effort into her work and her grades show it.  She is 
11, and in the sixth grade attending a new Jr. high school that was 
just finished this fall.  She is still taking piano lessons and has a 
lot of music theory behind her.  Carolyn keeps herself busy and rarely 
has a spare moment which helps to relieve her abundance of energy.  
She sings in our church choir, is active in 4H, learning sewing, 
cooking and continuing her knitting.  She is also involved in various 
school activities.  Reading is a favorite pastime with the Nancy Drew 
mysteries at the top of her reading list.  This year at the county 
fair she won several blue ribbons, plus to her delight, quite a bit of 
prize money.

Greg won  a blue ribbon in the fair for his electrical entry.  He also 
won a county award for his work in electricity.  His 4-H activities 
this year include: geology, cooking and dog care.  I have the boys 
group in cooking and they are really getting good.  Greg is not the 
daydreamer he was last year and he is to busy learning history and 
volunteering for every science experiment that comes along.  He still 
spends a great deal of time in the hills looking for fossils.

Joanne is a happy, 8 year old in the third grade.  Joanne especially 
loves animals and babies.  She was thrilled over winning two blue 
ribbons at the fair, one for cookies and one for a knitted pair of 
slippers.  She too enjoys reading, but most of all cooking.  She has 
made cookies, cakes, pancakes, biscuits, and complete dinners.  She 
also likes to draw and write and asked to share one of her poems.

Santa Claus

This is Santa fellow
His stomach is like jello,
He is fat and plump
and he can jump, jump, jump,
He's got eight reindeer,
than can even fly over a sphere,
I hope he comes this year,
For I want his reindeer.        by Joanne

Laurie is six and is in the first grade.  She is delighted to find she 
too can read.  Laurie says she has a corroded smile, being at that age 
when she has a few permanent teeth, lots of baby teeth and gaping 
spaces in between.  She also does well in school and has become quite 
a chatterbox.  To Laurie, the highlight of the year was when she got 
to be a flower girl for a friend's wedding and wore a floor length 
dress.  She thought she looked just beautiful and I must admit, I 
thought she was kind of cute too.

Our thoughts are with all of you and we wish you a Merry Christmas and 
a Joyous New Year.


I love that my dad seemed to capture a bit of our personalities, even way back then. Laurie is still very social, is beautiful and loves doing well in all she works to accomplish. No longer has a corroded smile.

Greg should have been an engineer. He is very gifted in all he undertakes both at work and in his personal life. I do not think he is interested in dog care at this point.

Carolyn still has more energy than expected and accomplishes a lot. She continues to be an avid reader, involved in many various activities and could also be called the dog whisperer and rescuer.

I don't write nearly as much as I'd love to. My poetry hasn't improved, but I still love cooking.

That's about all for now, from the Christmas letter of 1970.